Spiritual Common Sense

Near the end of his life, Albert Einstein -born 134 years ago today – was interviewed by the editor of a scientific publication.  The interview ranged across the breadth of Einstein’s life and work.  As they were wrapping up, the interviewer said he had one final question.

“Why are we here?”  he asked.

When Einstein did not immediately reply, the interviewer became embarrassed and apologized for asking something so difficult.

Einstein smiled gently.

“If I looked puzzled,” he said, “it is because you asked me something so simple.  We are here to serve one another.”

From this fundamental truth, reflected in differing ways of saying the same thing – see Truett Cathy below – flows man’s mission statement.  Everything we do that matters is done in response to this central law of life.  Everything that lasts is created out of the love and concern of one human being for another.

Contrary to popular opinion, the secret to success in life has more to do with our hearts than our heads.  What makes us different is not our ability to think but our ability to love.

If you don’t know Truett Cathy, you probably know Chick-fil-A.   If you know Chick-fil-A, you know they have the best the chicken sandwich around and the best service of any fast food restaurant in the country.  You may also know Chick-fil-A is closed on Sunday.   You might not know this all comes from Truett Cathy and the way he has his shaped his company to reflect his personal values.

Truett will be 92 on the 14^th of March.  He started in business at the age of eight selling Coca-Cola door to door for a nickel a bottle.  He is now worth upwards of $4 billion.  But what makes Truett’s story truly remarkable is not how much money he has made but how he managed to became so successful.

“We had a corporate retreat a few years ago,” he told me when we met, “and we asked ourselves:  Why are we in business?  Why are we alive?  What is the purpose of living anyway?”

After days of discussion, Truett and his team came up with a statement of corporate purpose that still guides Chick-fil-A today:  “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to our care and to have a positive influence on all the people with whom we come in contact.”

That is an unusual statement for any corporation to make, but even more so when you consider the nature of Chick-fil-A’s business.

“Whether we know it or not, we influence everyone we associate with in a positive or negative way,” Truett explained.  “The ability to influence another person by what we do is one of the greatest gifts God has given us.”

“I say to my wife oftentimes, we are not in the chicken business, we are in the people business.  You cannot be a success in life unless you develop a heart for other people.  It is each and every one of our responsibilities to use what resources we have to help other people.”

Like Truett, are all in the people business.  No individual stands alone, complete, distinct, and unadorned.  Others act upon us as we act on upon them.  We shape the direction of each other’s lives much as the wind affects the tree’s design.  You can see even the slightest breeze captured in the movement of the leaves, but it is only with the passage of time that we see how the tree has been inclined.

Henri Landwirth is about to celebrate his 87^th birthday.  It’s safe to say he beat the odds.

At the age of 13, Henri was sent to Plaszow, his first concentration camp.  Over the next five years he went from Plaszow to Random, Random to Auschwitz, Auschwitz to Mauthausen, Mauthausen to Flossenberg, and Flossenberg to Mittelbau.  Each camp was progressively worse than the last; each camp was more lethal.

Viktor Frankl said he calculated the odds of survival in Auschwitz at 1 in 29 and that Auschwitz was pleasant compared to Mauthausen. Mauthausen was a death camp.  When Henri arrived there, the average survival period was four months.  Mittelbau was even worse.  Two thousand people went to Mittelbau with Henri.  Less than 300 survived.

Small wonder Henri has always felt he lives on borrowed time.  But the fact that Henri survived is less remarkable to me than the way he has chosen to live his life.

Henri lived in the closest thing to hell man can contrive.  He saw humanity at its worst.   He has answered by embodying the best.  Where there is abundant reason for anger, hate, and bitterness, there is only love, joy, and  forgiveness.

When I met him 25 years ago, I couldn’t help wondering how this was possible, particularly how he could forgive those who had imprisoned him, starved and abused him, and killed his mother and father.  I learned it started like every journey with a single step, a decision that changed the direction of his life.

When the war ended, Henri was nineteen.  He said he was consumed by hate.   He wanted the Germans to suffer the way they had made him suffer.  He did everything he could to make sure they did.

“When they begged me for mercy,” Henri said, “I didn’t hear them.  I thought of my mother and father and I didn’t hear them at all.”

Then came the morning he met a German boy walking near a stream between two towns.  He was about the same age as Henri had been when he was taken to Plaszow.  The boy was dressed in the uniform of the Hitler Jurgen, Hitler’s youth organization.

Henri still remembers the way his blood boiled.  He remembers blocking the boy’s way and asking him if he was a good Hitler Jurgen.  Henri remembers the fear in boy’s eyes.

“I wanted to hurt him,” Henri says.  “I wanted to do to him what they had done me.  I told him to take off his clothes or I was going to kill him.”

The boy did as he was told and stood naked before his tormentor, as Henri had done so many times before, shivering and afraid in the face of unreasoning hate.  As Henri looked at the boy, the rage he had been carrying crested.

“I grabbed the boy by the neck,” Henri recalls, “and thought I would strangle him with my bare hands.”

Then from deep inside came a quiet thought.  He did not want to be like them.

“I did not want to become what I despised,” Henri says.  “Anything would be better than turning into one of them.”

Slowly, the rage subsided.   When he caught his breath, he released the boy and told him to run.  It would be many years before he could say he forgave the Germans, but he had turned compassion’s corner.  The healing had begun.

Mother Teresa gave us a valuable metaphor for life.

“When you look at the inner workings of electrical things,” she said, “often you see small and big wires – new and old, cheap and expensive – lined up.  Until the current passes through them, there is no light.”

She believed we are like those wires – intertwined and interconnected, strung across the span of space and time, radiating God’s love.  Some are larger than others and have greater capacity.  Some will travel a greater distance and support a greater load, but all have power and all are connected to the same source of energy.  Each of us contributes to the light of the world.

The world is a better and brighter place each time we are thoughtful, each time we are kind, each time we seek to help or heal, each time we care.  The light dims every time we turn our backs and walk away.  The light dies with every act of love lost in indifference.

You cannot love without giving.

The only way to have love is to give it.

The more you love, the more you can love.

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.

Nothing of value can be accomplished without love.

What makes us different is not our ability to think, but our ability to love.

No matter what the problem is the answer will be found when you surround it with love.

Happy Valentines Day!